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Co-worker Sabotage! How One Savvy Professional Turned a Dirty Trick Around

A girlfriend recently had a very interesting situation occur in which a co-worker consciously tried to make her look bad in front of her peers and her boss.

Ever had that happen to you? Read about the professionally savvy way she handled the situation.

“Jane” had worked with her team to pull together a report for field sales to use in their sales efforts. Since the field team hadn’t kept the customer account database updated, the information was obviously not 100% accurate. Her plan was for the field to use the report as a “starting point,” review the sales potential of the accounts, and provide Jane’s internal team with information to update the database.

One field manager (“Tom”) met with Jane to discuss his displeasure at the amount of inaccuracies in the database. Jane calmly listened to all his complaints and acknowledged the frustration he was feeling. Once he ran out of steam, she explained that her team had no way of knowing the up-to-date information about each account, only the sales reps would know.

She explained how they hoped to relieve the administrative burden by updating the database for the field team, once the field provided them with the missing information. Tom left her office appearing to be satisfied.

A few days later on a team conference call, Jane briefed everyone about the plan to ensure a smooth database update. The discussion was positive with many managers promising to work together to implement Jane’s plan. Tom then jumped into the conference call like a bitter child throwing a wet blanket over the proceedings.

He brought up all the same negative comments he had already explained in Jane’s office earlier in the week. He vented to everyone on the call and then proceeded to bash Jane and her team for the quality of the report and for not taking on even more of the administrative burden.

To Jane’s credit, she maintained her composure and reiterated the game plan on how her team would help. Although most participants left the call feeling annoyed and frustrated, they were impressed with Jane’s professionalism.

What would YOU have done in this situation? Here’s what Jane did:

After the conference call ended, Jane took a deep breath, went for a walk down the hall to collect her thoughts and to shake off her anger, and then contacted Tom to discuss what had just happened.

She calmly and unemotionally let Tom know that his outburst had not only caused a very positive conference call to turn negative, but that it made it appear that he was trying to make her team look bad.

She then asked him if that was the intent of his comments. Tom was surprised at her direct approach, but what could he say? He “back-peddled,” and tried poorly to explain why he did what he had done.

Ultimately, by being firm and professional, Jane got what she wanted…an apology from Tom for his actions along with a promise never to behave that way again.

She concluded the discussion with positive comments about the need for them to work together as a team and that she was looking forward to continuing to work with him and hoped they could both put this incident behind them for good.

The next day, while in a one-on-one discussion with her boss, she described to him how she had handled the situation with Tom. He congratulated her on her professionalism and thanked her for proactively dealing with the uncomfortable situation.

Here are the “keys to success” pulled from this example to help when dealing with these kinds of situations.

Always remain calm when someone verbally “attacks” you.

Listen to their complaints with an open mind and a closed mouth.

Do not interrupt them – hear them out until they run out of things to say.

Do not get defensive.

Acknowledge their issues and pain; acknowledge that you heard what they said.

Try to see the situation from their point of view.

Don’t approach someone for a discussion until you can think rationally.

Immediately address issues, do not wait and hope they eventually just go away.

Stand up for yourself in a professional, classy manner.

How have you handled co-worker sabotage? Share your inspiring story with others in the comments section below.

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Everyone must have had their share of similar experiences, what makes the difference is, are we ‘reacting without thinking’ or ‘stand still, think and then respond’. More precise where your efforts in reaching out to Tom and speak one-on-one and clarify matters rather than on the call. Nice strategy to work ethics.

Thank you for sharing your experience and above all your thoughts on handling the situation.

Thanks for this piece Lisa. The common tendency is to immediately go on the defensive and stage an immediate counter attack making both persons look extremely childish. Keep your cool – but ensure you stand up for yourself. Easier said than done though, i must admit. Especially how to ensure you get your piece across aft the attacker has finished throwing the tantrum.

Hello Lisa, Could you direct me to where I can get more posts on how to speak well. As in being in control of what I say, knowing what to say and how to say it etc. would really love to improve my professional speaking skills to higher levels.

One of the best resources I’ve found as far as improving speaking and presentation skills is Toastmasters. As their website mentions, “Toastmasters International is a world leader in communication and leadership development.”

I have found it helpful to join a group, learn speaking skills, and be able to practice the new skills in a safe environment. This helps the learning take place at a fast pace because of being able to practice and obtain feedback for improvement from other people who are also trying to improve their speaking abilities. Here is a link to their website: http://www.toastmasters.org

Unfortunately, it is a fact, which is difficult to manage someone, especially if he really needs the job and not have someone on his part to support him. I had some situations like these at the past, but more often, I could not respond because I had no evidence to prove my innocence. Once, I have forced to quit from my work , after a similar behavior and I do believe that is the worst thing that can be happened to someone, especially if he is newbie and cannot clashing with other employees.

I had a similar incident happen to me recently and it left me with an unsettling feeling in my gut. Recently, a person who was training me for a position at a work place has “taken the training wheels off” so-to-speak, and let me do the job. Well, on the first day, I realized that he was training me wrong when a person from HR complained that I was not doing the job according to their standards.

“Well,” I replied, “I was doing it according to how I was taught by my trainer.” Since I had previous experience, there were some things that I knew on my own but my trainer wasn’t going to tell me these things, I realized. He really wanted to know if I knew how to do the job, and if I didn’t know, I assume he would figure out someway to have me fired. It wasn’t long that I started noticing the awkward looks from other individuals and still his friendliness remained stronger than ever.

I realized, my own trainer was trying to sabotage me from working at this company! I was shocked when I realized it. Finally, things came to a head today when he said that I was “twisting his words to make him look dumb.” This wasn’t true at all, I don’t try to make anyone look dumb. I told him, “Well, when you tell me that this is the way you do the job, and you train me to follow your special way, and you say, I “could” follow the proper procedures but I don’t have to because no one cares anyway.” Really makes it seem like my choice to do the job as I see fit. Then he said, “Well you won’t last long if that’s what you think.” Then he walked away. I followed your steps listed here on this webpage though, about staying calm and confronting him.

Unfortunately, the only place to confront him about how he was training me was in front of others. I’m sure that’s become fodder for the gossip mill — one he started. And I just barely started working for this company last Thursday!